I don’t know the nitty-gritty of branded horror cinema like what Blumhouse is doing for some years now. What I can say is that, for me, the end product leaves a lot to be desired.
The ultimate insult was to see an article that compared Jason Blum to Roger Corman. I didn’t bother to read it; it didn’t deserve the honor of me reading it.
It’s wrong when the company’s approach is a profits-based one. Give Blumhouse credit as a profit-turning company, but their movies aren’t comparable to Corman’s by a long shot (no pun intended).
I guess I get the business model of Blumhouse. By keeping the production costs lean they have spare resources to make a greater quantity of movies in a shorter period.
To have an assorted and big catalog like that, and integrating all kinds of marketing techniques before and during the promotion, gives them a clear view of what audiences want. Then they have just to allocate resources to the properties that resonate with the audiences and stop developing the ones that flop. And then... the numbers speak for themselves.
Why do I think a system like this wouldn’t be sustainable, and why do I dislike Blumhose so deeply? Because I’ve watched, I’d say around seventy percent of their movies and I can’t remember almost any scenes from practically any of them.
What’s more, when I remember a scene of any one of them, if I’m able to do that at all, the only thing that I remember is that I was disappointed by the movie while watching it. This is a basic sign that the movies aren’t good. Even if you go with practically null expectations into it.
I must have watched Paranormal Activity two, three, or four years after it was released, and I liked it. The low-budget, indy approach was a highlight of what attracted me to watch it.
That’s why I kept on watching Blumhouse movies. But the disillusionment with the brand didn’t take long to make its presence felt.
It was depressing, to watch succeeding movies, every one of them having a lower value for me than the previous one. Especially the Paranormal Activity series.
From their whole catalog, I can say I like only the original Paranormal Activity, Hush, and Sinister 2. That’s a pathetic low count of liked movies, for a company owning a such a big catalog.
My final opinion about this company is, one, that they are trying too hard. Two, they go too much by the book. They’re doing what they were told to do in film school: a low production values, scarce funding resources approach to film making, to be efficient in business and turn a profit. The result is trash movies.
While I researched for this article, I was confronted with the underdogs. Companies that I haven’t heard about, nor about their movies, but that slowly seem to be approaching movie-making the way Blumhouse does.
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